CubeSat interplanetary exploration is heating up | Hacker News Reader

CubeSat interplanetary exploration is heating up

orbitalindex.com

93 pointstectonic25 comments

I bought the book, and I am working through: Building High Integrity Applications with SPARK. I put Rust aside due to Ada/SPARK's lead in this industry. I think Rust will catch up, but SPARK2014 seems to be the way to go for now.

[EDIT] - The CubeSat Design Team at the University of Vermont wrote the book I mentioned above, and it is using SPARK2014. I am trying to design my own satellite using this book as a guideline. I am just providing context to the short, late-night comment I made above.

With the delta-V map at the end of the article, it’s amazing to see how much closer Mars is than The Moon.

(“Closer”, while meaning nearer in distance, is also a planet surface word meaning “cheaper to get to”. The latter sense is the one used here, for frictionless robotic space travel.)

The reason is fairly simple; to get to the moon, you have to intercept the moon and then slow down below escape velocity, if you want low orbit or surface landing, you need to break a lot and get a circular orbit first, possible with a tilt in case your landing spot is up north or south.

To Mars, you do not have to circularize as much as at that distance, the transfer orbit isn't that much more elliptic compared to the moon and you also get to aerobreak to the surface, which saves a few tons of fuel.

Imagine you own and operate a train. You worry about brake pads. They are expensive and heavy and slowing the train to a halt wears them out.

Moon is your least favourite station. In order to let passengers off at Moon you have to come to a complete halt. The brakes get hot and wear out quickly.

Mars is a much better station to visit, at least for you. It’s surrounded by a mountain of soft airy pillows. You can just push the passengers out the door as you fling past, knowing they’ll hit the pillows and eventually come to a stop. It’s uncomfortable for them but it’s not terribly dangerous and you save a fortune on brake pads.

In fact, Moon and Mars are on two different branch lines of the railway. If you can contrive to only operate the branch line that serves Mars station, you don’t even need to bother fitting brakes to your train.

How long before someone(s) decide to try to jumpstart Mars terraforming via CubeSat or an equivalent?

How would that even work? Just drop some bacteria that can process inorganics on mars?

To answer the sibling comment as well. Intentionally contaminating Mars with bacteria from Earth would be an immediate violation of planetary protection guidelines. It's illegal under the Outer Space treaty:

Article IX: ... States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose...

Essentially all the major space powers signed this. Though note that militarization is not included (so spy satellites are Kosher), aside from weapons of mass destruction.

This is a contentious issue as right now the only way you're getting to Mars is with a national space agency and they get to vet your lander. But sooner or later, companies like Spacex will be able to do it and so far (see Starlink) they've proven to be fairly ignorant in terms of consulting with the research community. The rules for planetary protection are extremely strict because if you want to prove that there was life on Mars, your results are ruined if you accidentally contaminate the landing site. However lots of people think they're too stringent. For example, caves/overhangs would be a great place to set up a colony because there is natural radiation shielding. Of course this is also a prime spot for Martian life, for the same reason, so nobody is allowed to target landers anywhere near those areas.

Probably what will happen is we'll designate areas of Mars to be conservation areas where Earth contamination is strictly controlled or prohibited. See, for example, the Antarctic Treaty. There could be lower risk areas like open plains for colonies. I'm sure there are plenty of papers discussing this though.

While I understand the point of the treaty, do you think it will have any teeth once private companies are able to provide their own infrastructure? Just out of curiosity (due to my own lack of legal knowledge in this area), how is it that a treaty that a) is for another plant, solar system, celebration body etc and b) if I didn’t personally sign or recognize this treaty then how can this treaty apply to me, a citizen of a non-space power?

Countries are held responsible for spacecraft "flying their flag" in the same way as ships, and required to appropriately regulate launches from their territory.

That worked well for Beirut, though...

Who exactly is going to hold the USA responsible for any violation of that treaty? And if someone tries to, what's stopping the USA from ignoring them?

Exactly. International agreements are just farces :)

If we can't enforce basic things like the Geneva convention or the Human rights Convention i don't think the Outer Space treaty stands a chance to be honest....

Every probe sent has already broken this treaty. For all the clean rooms and assurances our rovers and probes are completely covered with bacteria.

I believe we have a civic duty to spread extremophiles across the solar system.

If there is life on Mars it's very likely much the same as our own and distantly related.

Gambling on the future of the only known life in the universe to satiate scientific curiosity is not worth it whatsoever.

Is that legal?

NASA is required to adhere to (self-defined) planetary protection guidelines, but as yet there's no US law against it as it has not previously been considered possible for anyone but the government to be in a position to do so.

Is anything illegal in space? Which court does space law answer to?

Under the Outer Space Treaty, most of the legal burden is put on whatever nation something belongs to (kinda like the flag for a ship)

Rocket Lab is looking for a software engineer (preferably with some space or other relevant experience) in Long Beach if you're interested in building services to operate satellites including our lunar mission:

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/careers/positions/operations-so...

Small typo: “fight software” instead of “flight software” :)

How do you know that's a typo?

Rocket Lab also just demonstrated their Photon upper stage being repurposed as a satellite on the most recent launch. As a company, they’re working on some very cool stuff.

I noticed that the job app lists US Citizenship as required for ITAR. This is not true, Legal Permanent Residents are in fact US persons for ITAR requirements.

Thanks for flagging that - I will double check on this and see if we can update it.

Similar roles also advertised in NZ

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/careers/positions/operations-so...

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